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Bambi St James

A Friendly Betrayal

Synopsis

Four ladies take a ride of friendship, love and betrayal. Kennedy is a doctor and co-owner of a small clinic, dating one of her cities most influential men with another man falling for her. Chrissette is owner Chrissette's House of Design and in love with the most beautiful wrong man. Jasmine an up and coming real estate mogul with love to share but sometimes the sharing has to stop. Then there is Penelope editor in chief of Raven magazine who loves everyone's man, who is also hiding a past her friends couldn't imagine.

Author Biography

Bambi St. James has spent her life living what most would consider to be the "American Dream" finishing college and working for a large company for more than fifteen years. Yet for Bambi these dreams do not fulfill anything for her. Since a child Bambi has had a love for books both old literatures and new novels. Through college Bambi kept to electives that kept her reading and writing. Today she asks you to take this voyage with her as she journeys through her love of words, storytelling and awesome endings.

Author Insight

Keeping Secrets

The situation I find myself in isn't unheard of at all. Women do it all the time. But because it's me everyone will be bent out of shape. Penelope does it all the time and no one bats a pretty eyelash. But I know if I share this with them I will be judged differently. So I will continue to enjoy in secret for as long as I could.

Book Excerpt

A Friendly Betrayal

Chapter 8 Kennedy

“So for what reason couldn’t the leggy blonde come and take you home this evening?”

“If she picks me up then we would have been expected to have dinner together. Quite possibly another sleep over and I don’t do two nights in a row with women who are not my woman.”

“But you don’t have a woman,” I remind him.

“Exactly,” he says with a duh expression before taking a bite of his tuna melt.

Neither of us had had anything to eat since the breakfast he and his leggy blonde brought in to the clinic this morning. It had been a long day so after locking up we stopped at the City Diner for sandwiches.

“So tonight you will see someone else?”

To say the girl was pretty would be an understatement, without heels on she met his height easily at six feet even. They had come in with breakfast for both me and Dr. Rea Taylor whom we hired two years ago. From what I had seen the blonde was not only pretty but well educated. After eating breakfast with us she kissed Brian farewell like they were married with children and a great sex life.

It was something I truly thought he deserved, so it

blew my mind that he was sitting here blowing her

A Friendly Betrayal

off. But then again it didn’t, Brian is the type of man

who attracted all kinds of beauty. Outside of looks he

has charm and money with only a bit of arrogance.

“Probably not, I'm beat and it’s just Monday,”

he shrugs.

“You’re a trip.”

“I know the girl I want and these girls are not

her.”

“You know her,” I ask shocked nearly choking

on my own Cuban sandwich.

“You’re not listening. I know what my woman

would be like and she is nothing like these girls. I

have good sex, but I haven’t had that one yet, when I

know you will know.” I was listening and something

in his tone said he knew exactly who he wanted, but I

won’t push-- not now.

Then to change the subject he asks, “What

about you? Are you seeing that lady’s husband

tonight?” His words make me cringe.

“No I am not. And if you really don’t care

about what is going on then don’t ask.”

This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell anyone.

Someone always has something to say about

another’s life problem while inadvertently ignoring

their own. For some reason friends have a hard time

not judging, which sadly makes it hard to share true

feelings with them. You know they have your best Bambi St. James interest at heart, but couldn’t they do it in a way that

left you feeling less stupid? Understand that I am an

adult and will ask for advice; I do not need it

unsolicited. If we have had the conversation once isn’t

that enough? Don’t treat me like a child. You do not

have to continuously tell me no and stop.

When Brian first asked about me dating

someone I told him I didn’t know what he was

talking about. Told him I didn’t have the time or

patience to deal with the men who approached me on

the regular. The men out there have no insight or

goals so conversations were always at a minimum.

Men who couldn’t sex me worth a shit but grinning

like the deals were sealed. But my lover is different,

so well cultured and a great lover.

“I don’t believe you. Something is different and it’s good. You smile more and have a glow. I just want to know where it’s coming from.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess I am just happy with life right now, the clinic is doing awesome if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh I have, I'm quite happy with it myself, but it doesn’t exactly give the same joy of an orgasm.”

“Brian!” I laugh walking off with a smile but not ready to share my new joy.

Brian didn’t let up for weeks; he asked daily.

He asked whenever the clinic’s chaos found us alone, at the end of phone calls, business or personal, and

A Friendly Betrayal

sometimes a phone call just for this line of questioning. Then one day flowers arrive and when I thought it not possible, his persistence deepens. With the evidence staring us both in the face I had no more lies, I tell him the truth that I want to keep to myself.

The truth that no one was supposed to know about, put my truth into existence for someone else to examine and I have been regretting it ever since.

Wishing like hell I would have told no one, but I thought out of everyone, Brian would understand.

He fucks everything walking without a second thought like his blonde he doesn’t want to see again.

Now I know will never tell my girls, just from Brian’s reaction.

Don’t get me wrong I understand his dislike of the situation. As a true friend the fact that this is all out of character for me and not going to have a happy ending, I get it. I want the same thing for him; he wouldn’t be a good friend if he didn’t want the best for me. But at some point you have to shut up and just be my friend and if and when I need to cry or talk about it, don’t judge.

“I do care. I care that he is going to break your heart. I care that I voted for the bastard.”

“You’re not a saint, Brian.”

“I know that and I wouldn’t vote for me either,” he says with a smirk.

“Look I don’t judge you or your girls-- don’t judge me.”

Bambi St. James

“No judgement, just concern. You ready to get out of here, cuz I'm beat and my shower is calling.”

“Sure.”

“I got the bill. Thanks for the ride home.”

The ride home finds me trying to have a conversation with an uninterested Brian. I didn’t know what was going on in his head and I didn’t want to ask, so I shut up. For some reason relationship talk between Brian and I seems to come to a somewhat tense ending. Disagreements and no understanding of what the other is looking for.

Well maybe not always, early in our friendship we were fine. I would see him with different girls and it was funny. They all thought they were the one, no other could have his heart but plenty did. He was just a man who loved women and they seemed to love him. They have always fallen all over his good looks, money and charm. To add in college--they knew he was pre-med and quite brilliant, then he was also on the football team, which he eventually had to drop for conflict in schedule. Girls were disappointed, but his focus was medicine. Those same girls never stopped wanting him even after he wasn’t running the field. He was and still is a girl’s dream.

But we were young then and life was supposed to be fun and care free for us all. He was supposed to be experiencing life maybe to be a better man and lover for his wife. Just at this point I thought he had.

A Friendly Betrayal

learned everything that he could and it is time to move on. He has the pickings of the best fruits from around the world, why isn’t he taking one?

When we pulled in front of his house his kissed my forehead as always, said he would see me tomorrow and closed my car door. He entered his home not looking back and I pulled off. The tension after his mention of my lover evident, I decide to make the situation go away for Brian. I would make it seem as if my lover didn’t exist anymore and Brian and I won’t have silent arguments.

For Brian he never seemed to really care for any of my dates, but he also never was as hard on any of them as he has been lately. I know, like me he just wants the best for me. What he has to understand is that I know like he knows that this thing I am doing is wrong and not going to last. Only as his friend I would understand his wanting to leave his lonely nights sometimes, sort of like he does now. Never have I harped on him for anyone he was dating.

When I get home I send an ‘I'm here’ text to my lover and start to prepare myself. Yes I knew it was time to start lying about my relations to Brian for both our sakes. Stepping into the steaming shower I think of times gone by, let my memories flow down the drain with the day’s stress.

* * *

Arguing with Brian is always hard because he has always been there for me. After Dallas and I Bambi St. James officially broke up I got our leasing office to let us out of our lease of the next five months for our security deposit and I jetted with nowhere to go and not enough money to start a new lease right away. With the clinic and the problems with Dallas my pockets were thin and I needed a moment to regroup.

My parents told me I was welcomed back home and even though it was a plan it wasn’t ideal.

The home I grew up in is small and truthfully who wants to move back home. Then there was a point when my parents told me to just sell my share of the clinic to Brian, I could work for him and I would still be helping people. My heart was broken that this was the point I had gotten to trying to stick by my man.

Trying to help a man who in the end had no future plans of evolving, a man who was cheating on me with a woman he used my car to take to work. Using my gas and patience on a bitch who was also unconcerned with evolving. Leaving both of them to live at their perspective mother’s house left me elated and homeless. All of my friends at the time were in relationships except Pen, but I couldn’t live with her for fear of coming home to an orgy of some type. So I made the only move I believed I had at the time.

Brian and I had talked in detail about the things I was going through at home. He knew all about the things that had come to light in my relationship. What he didn’t know was that I had no money and nowhere to go. Pride made it hard to admit to a handsome and wealthy man that you had been made a complete full of, friend or not. My shit

A Friendly Betrayal was a mess and I was supposed to be his well put together counterpart, business partner.

What I had to say would crush every assumption he had of me. The way I held my head high now had to be lowered because I was lower. But I had to do what I had to do and even if it wasn’t my money to make the clinic succeed it would be my hard work.

So many emotions were going through me on the day I went to see Brian. Frustration, anger, sadness but yet I was still elated to not have the crutch of Dallas attached to me. Tears ran down my face as I drove over. Silent tears, no need for a hard cry I had come to terms with what I had to do. Just that what I wanted to do was totally different. This isn’t the way I had planned to better my life. I was going to be in magazines for doing something great for a mixture of people not just my own.

Before going into Brian’s house I clean up my face. I didn’t want him to feel any pity or conflict about the situation.

“Are you crazy!?! The whole thing was your idea. What type of friend would I be if I took that from you?” Speaking wasn’t an option since I was totally caught off by his outburst.

“Besides I don’t need the money,” he adds in a gentler tone. As we sit and drink I tell him the complete story of my situation. Brian spends the late hours listening with little interruption. Only small Bambi St. James comments when needed, when appreciated, shoulders to cry on with no judging, just comfort.

Then when I was done crying, the sun had gone to bed and the stars had been mingling for a while; he offered me his guest bedroom free of charge. At first I didn’t want to take the offer. I didn’t want to feel like I owed anyone anything. But when I went back to take the last of my things from my apartment I found a picture of Brian and I from school. Thoughts of how he has really been a big help with the clinic, but most important I think of his reaction tonight. He has been my best friend for years. It was a wonderful offer and yes I could put away a lot more money a lot faster.

Our living arrangement was a dream. Brian was and still is an early riser and a true believer in breakfast complete with coffee, because a girl can’t attempt to comb her hair without caffeine. Then the carpooling saved gas money not to mention with me not paying rent I was saving fairly quickly. I had my own room and bathroom in his massive house that his parents gifted to him for graduation. I thought it absurd to buy a bachelor something so big and unfulfilled. So did Brian and his father, but his mother was under the impression that Brian would be filling it soon with her grandbabies. We have been out of school for more than seven years and she still holds on to this hope. It would break her heart to know that the only babies her son was entertaining in the house are considered sugar babies to most.

A Friendly Betrayal

The doorbell rings just as I stepped out the shower but I didn’t rush. I moisturized my skin because fresh out the shower is the best time but also because I am a woman and shouldn’t be rushed. He should want to see me at my best even if that includes no make-up. Once I finish I go to the door dressed only in a long coral silk kimono robe. Opening the door I find him waiting patiently with a smile. When the door is closed, his hand goes immediately into my robe for my ass, roughly but gently he pushes me against the wall. Bringing my leg up with one hand he uses the other to pull out one of my breasts, pinching my nipples and kissing my neck. Brian would have to forgive me because sex is just something the mind, body and soul needs.